


Blue Are The Life Giving Waters

by ArwenLune



Series: Shades of Blue [2]
Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Female Character of Color, Gen, Post-X3, Self-Discovery, character evolution, coming of age (sorta)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2013-07-29
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:12:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 15,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenLune/pseuds/ArwenLune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follows my story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/239314">Blue Are The Songs Of Despair</a>.</p><p>Mystique has returned home, and become Raven again. But who is Raven?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The crash of the mug on the floor must have drawn some attention, because she dimly registers the crowd of kids on the landing, and Logan is suddenly standing in front of her. She looks up from where she's slid down with her back against the wall. He squats down, and the concern on his face jars her out of her haze.

"Hey, you okay?"

He offers her a hand up, and she looks at her skin against his as he pulls her up. In the low light down near the ground she just looks pale. When they get to their feet and into the garderobe light she startles at the contrast.

He sees her look, turns to stand next to her as her eyes are drawn to the mirror. She doesn't have one in the dome, and she'd avoided them anywhere else. So she hasn't seen before now that the patches of eczema are the exact shape her scales used to be, and that her skin is the kind of shade that in low light might be taken for sickly, but in the clear lamp light is unmistakably pale blue.

Oh.

 ** _OH_**.

 

Logan's reflection is searching her face. She blinks, too overwhelmed to have anything coherent to say. The 'cure' isn't permanent? She instinctively knows she can't morph, the gap in her being is still there, though it's been less jarring of late. She no longer automatically reaches for it quite so often. But apparently she might be getting get face back, and she hasn't ever seen anything so _welcome_ as the pale, grey-blue skin and the strange pattern of the rash. It isn't her face, not nearly, but it looks like it might become so again.

It's _not permanent_!

"Marie..." she whispers then. What's a blessing to her, will devastate the young woman.

"We got samples of the stuff," Logan says, but she can see his sadness for Marie too. "Hank might be able to figure something out."

The chatter of the kids on the landing grows, and Logan glares up at them.

"Don't you lot have homework or anything like that?"

They obligingly scatter, everybody except Marie and Jimmy, who hesitantly come down the stairs to join them at the mirror.

Raven reaches out to hug Marie, who looks very shaken. She doesn't feel much steadier herself. They share a wordless moment of synchronisation, where she's sure that the unspoken words 'I'm sorry' and 'I'm happy for you' cross eachother in the space between them. Maybe Marie feels it too - they both smile a little.

"That's weird," Logan says, and Raven looks up to see Jimmy stand next to her. The colour of her skin does not disappear. She already knew the rash wouldn't, it had never reacted to the boy's powers, but...

"Hank should take a look at this," Logan muses. Raven sees everybody look at her, perhaps to see how she'll react to that. It's no secret that she and Hank have hardly exchanged a word in the half year that she's been here.

Her head is buzzing with more different emotions than she can name, and everything seems distant, flat.

"I need to... um..."

She leaves the others standing there and after a few minutes realises that she's gone up the stairs, to the top floor, and to the concealed hatch that used to lead to the roof. Does anybody know it's there? It's been painted over, clearly unused for years, but she still remembers the trick of it. The ladder that used to live in the narrow back passage is gone, but it takes little effort to scale the wall, and then she's breathing the chill air.

From her vantage point she can see almost the entire estate, completely covered in white, the way she's only seen it once before. When she was perhaps twelve, and she and Charles had slipped away from a particularly stilted and tedious Christmas meal.

In moments like these, she can almost feel him in the air, sense the brush of his mind against hers.

"What happens now, Charles?" she whispered, indulging in the fantasy for a moment.

He does not answer.

Can she stay here, if she is Mystique again? Will they let her? Does she want to? Could she stand to live here, in peace and safety, while mutants everywhere are still in so much danger? She's done it these past months, but there was no choice, little she could do for them. If she is Mystique again, she has options.

Will Erik get his powers back? Will the Brotherhood continue? She dismisses that thought. Even if that happens, she has sworn she'll never follow him again. She doesn't think she'll ever follow anybody again.

There's a soft scrabbling sound not far away, and then Hank launches himself up and onto the roof. Of course, even with the access hidden her old hiding place isn't safe when there are teleporters and boys with wings and a super smart man who can scale walls as if they suspend gravity just for him.

He comes to stand next to her, wordlessly putting a coat over her shoulders. It's strange, because she's been wary of him all these months, but now he's standing next to her, big and blue and solid, it doesn't feel as if anything needs saying.

"He told me this used to be your favourite hiding spot," Hank says eventually. "I don't think he ever stopped missing you."

"I didn't stop missing him either," she says softly. Still hasn't.

"I didn't want to trust you, at first," he says then, and she smiles because it's his brilliant mind, leaping ahead of a thought. She doesn't mind, she can follow.

"I know."

"Will you come to the lab sometime? I would like to figure out what's happening."

"Yeah, it's okay. I just..."

"Needed a moment?"

She exhales explosively.

"Yeah."

"I can do most of what I need you for outside the lab, if that helps," he offers, and she gives him a startled look. Does he know? During her time in government custody several scientists had been granted access to her, and she tries not to think about that, because being small and scared and _subjectmutantobjectinteresting **thing**_ is not what she is.

"We heard too late," he says soberly. "They'd been very, very careful to keep it from me. I am sorry."

 _How can you stand it?_ she wants to ask _. How can you work for them, knowing what they do?_

She doesn't. She's not one to talk.

 

 

When she walks over to the mansion the next day he opens the door for her, and true to his word, does most of his tests in the study on the ground floor. She's a little nervous nonetheless, but he keeps up a steady stream of small talk, and when he mentions how Kurt seems to be opening up lately, she smiles despite the needle in her arm.

"We talked about..."

"Things?" he supplies with a smile.

"Yeah. And his father."

Hank stills.

"I never understood -- after what he did... how.."

"I won't ask you to try to understand it," she interrupts him softly. "We made eachother happy for a while, in a world where there wasn't a lot of happiness to go around."

He nods tightly.

"He runs a restaurant in Moscow these days. Quite successfully too, if the reviews are anything to go by."

His eyes go wide, and she can tell he's never thought of Azazel as having any dimension beyond _killer_.

"Figures, he likes knives," he mutters after a moment.

She snorts.

"He always was a good cook."

Hank shakes his head as if he finds the whole concept of the red-skinned teleporter doing anything but viciously murdering people too strange to think about.

"How does Kurt feel about him? You've told him what.. he.. is, right?"

"Of course. He's interested in meeting him."

"Ah." 

She sits very still while he runs some sort of device over the rash on her upper arm. It's starting to turn slightly purple as her skin regains its own colour.

"You said the rash started here?"

"Yes, my neck and upper arms."

"Hmm..." he rumbles as he looks at the laptop that is displaying data she doesn't understand. "I don't think it should take very much longer for the scales to start to emerge. Once I've done a blood analysis I'll be able to say more about the rate of development. Are you going to let Kurt meet his father? Does his father even want to meet him?"

She blinks at his rapid transition back to the earlier subject.

"I was going to contact Az to see how he feels about it, but I wanted to talk to you first. Maybe Kurt and I can go visit him in Moscow, but he would have to come over here to pick us up."

"I don't want him on the grounds. I don't want him to even know where this place is."

"Hank," she says gently, "He already knows."

" _What_? How.. when..."

She almost feels sorry for him, for the death of the idea that they were protected from somebody who could be there with a thought because that person _didn't know where they were_. But what had stopped Azazel from coming into the mansion and doing them harm, was Azazel himself. Because he hadn't wanted to.

It was strange to her that after all those years campaigning for mutant rights, for the right to be seen as a person, not simply a weapon, Hank could not think of Azazel as anything beyond the side he had seen.

"Charles asked me to come see him a few times. Az brought me."

"Charles _knew_ he came here?"

"They even talked briefly once."

He looks so shocked it's almost funny.

"He'd brought me here, and Charles had come outside – we went to the pavilion to talk. Az said he'd be back in a hour, and Charles told him to stay, that he wanted to meet his sister's boyfriend."

Azazel's expression had been... pole-axed was the word that came to mind. In fact, amusingly similar to Hank's expression right now.

"Charles had this way of making you want him to think the best of you, you know? What was it he said.. 'Expect the worst and you usually get the worst, but expect the best...?"

He gives her a Look over his glasses.

"'-and you usually get the best.' Yes. And how's that worked for you these past 35 years?"

She chuckles wryly.

"I did say they were _his_ words - I never got the hang of expecting the best from humanity."

In Azazel's case it had worked though. While he would never have been eager to harm what he termed non-combatants, after that visit nothing could have compelled him to bring harm to the school. In his own way he'd been quite fond of Charles, in that slightly puzzled way her brother often inspired.

"If you're okay with it, I would like to have the first meeting at my place, where they can both leave if they want. After that we can see."

"If there's an after that," he says, sounding sceptical.

Raven shrugs.

 

> From:      [khrazny@gmail.com](mailto:khrazny@gmail.com)  
> To:          [blue@diningwiththedevil.ru](mailto:blue@diningwiththedevil.ru)  
> subject:   Catching up
> 
>  _Hello Blue,_
> 
>  _How goes the restaurant business? Looking good from what I saw online. Big changes on my side – feel like catching up?_
> 
>  _Khrazny_

 


	2. Chapter 2

Her hair is growing out red. It's only a few millimetres so far, contrasting strangely with the dark hair of a face that was never hers. She asks Ororo if she can borrow the school's clipper, and almost gleefully takes off all the dark brown. It's cold like this - January is possibly not the best time of year to take off all your hair - but she feels so much better, as if she's reclaiming herself. The colour in her skin is increasing, but she still looks more like the hated human face than like herself. Not having the brown hair helps a little.  

It's very quiet at the dome for the next few days, with none of the usual visitors. Only Logan drops by, and she asks him about it.

"I think they're waiting to see if you'll stick around," he says, experimentally running his hand over her millimetred hair. Makes a soft sort of humming sound, and does it again. She's vaguely amazed that it doesn't give her the urge to break off his arm. Instead she tips her head, leaning into the touch a little. "Hank and 'Ro too."

"Or?"

"Go back to your old life, I guess."

He raises his eyebrows at the way she recoils a little, and gets a beer from the fridge.

"Is that what they think?"

"They don't know," he drops down onto the sofa. "and they've only recently lost the two people who were the bedrock of this place. Summers and Xavier were... for a while there nobody was sure if there was even a school left, without them."

She notices he doesn't include Jean Grey - but then, she had been gone a lot longer.

"I guess they're just cautious 'bout getting attached to you," he shrugs.

"And you?" she tries for lightness, turning away to pour herself wine. It's dangerous close to the _thing_ that's been in the air between them for months, something vague and brittle she's not dared to look at too closely.

"Darlin', I _know_ you're not the sort of person to make the rest of her life about acting classes and feeding stray cats," he says, not sounding like he thinks she should be. When she rounds on him, he continues "Don't mean I think you're going back to your old life. It ain't binary -there's more options than just those two."

She remembers thinking, while she was on the roof only a few days ago, that she could either be Raven, who is what she imagines Charles wanted her to be, or Mystique, who infiltrates governments and blows up buildings - who is what Erik wanted her to be. That there is a space in between... that there is a Raven who is neither of their images of her... will take some getting used to.

"I can't even morph," she says. Hank cautiously speculates that it might come back in time, but it's too early to allow herself hope. "And even if I got that back, it would take a long time to relearn."

"So you're not going anywhere, at least for a while? They'll be glad to hear it."

She stares at him, because - really?

"In case you need it pounded into your thick blue skull, some of the kids really like you," he says, sounding almost amused. "You're not a teacher, you're edgy and interesting, you'll let them hang out here and have a beer--"

"You noticed that, huh?"

"Oh, we all know - but it's good. We can't be seen to condone it, but better they learn to drink here with somebody around who can deal with mutation mishaps, than somewhere else," he grins. "Hell, that used to be my role, but now I'm a _teacher_ and I have to be responsible and shit."

Despite his wry tone, he doesn't sound unhappy about it. Maybe just a little perplexed.

"Anyway, if you hadn't noticed, some of the kids really open up to you."

This was true. It sometimes still mystified her. She'd even had some interesting discussions on the future of the mutant rights movement, and how it compared to the black rights and gay rights movements she had witnessed. Her own views weren't so clear cut these days, and she had mostly asked questions, curious to see what their ideas of the future of mutants rights was. Some of them seemed to take it as a challenge to convince her.

"Yeah, we've had some interesting discussions," she grins. "Not sure if you should be so thrilled with some of the stuff I've been telling them. I'm not radical, not anymore, but one thing Charles and I could never agree on was pacifism."

"Hell, we don't need another voice preachin' passivity around here," he shrugged. "And 'Ro says she found Jubilee looking up info about the Stonewall Riots because she wanted to compare situations. Anything that can get them interested is great."

Is it the idea that she's dangerously close to becoming a teacher? Raven is suddenly restless.

"I want to go out, I need to do some shopping. I can't be telling the kids they shouldn't have to hide if I don't go off the grounds unless I can morph to look normal. Can I go shopping here in Westchester or..."

"We're not that much of a secret anymore," Logan shrugs. "It should be fine. Wanna come along into town tomorrow?"

"Yeah, please."

 

It's a strange urge, wanting to wear her own face into the Recycle Centre, to the coffee bar, the super market. It will by no means be the first time she's been blue in a public place (Being Blue In a Public Place – almost sounds like an arrestable offence like that. Makes a good band name, too) but it will be the first time she has no choice. By nature of her mutation she has always had the option to hide, the privilege to pass for normal. It feels like a rite of passage to seek out public situations now that she can't.

Plus, there's a computer shop in town and it's about time she gets a new laptop and an internet connection in the dome. Emailing Azazel has reminded her of how disconnected she's been from the state of mutant issues, and if there's one thing that has always been her area it's information gathering and networking. It'll be interesting to see if the gap her disappearance had left in the mutant resistance community has been filled by now. Her skillset is still unique as far as she knows, and it's one of the reasons she can't have peace with the idea of being a teacher for the rest of her life. She has much too offer to the cause.

(of course, there's a risk that she'll see things that enrage her and wants to act upon. And she _has_ just been indignant with the suggestion she'd go back to her old life. She'll cross that bridge when she can morph into the bridgekeeper.)

 

 

When Logan has gone back to the mansion she texts Marie to ask her and Rahne when they're coming over for another acting session. If they need her to show that she's not leaving (at least not now, not soon, not yet), she can do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is Wuv


	3. Chapter 3

She goes to the mansion a little early the next day, before Logan has finished his art class. The concept of Logan teaching Art had baffled the mind until she'd seen the intricate constructions he makes, all cogs and wheels and steampunk Dali. He knits, too, he'd said with a challenging grin. Or at least, he has a memory of being a soldier, hiding out in a farm, and knitting his own socks. She'd dared him to make it a class project next term.

She checks the email account she's set up to talk to Azazel.

 

from:       [blue@diningwiththedevil.ru](mailto:blue@diningwiththedevil.ru)  
to:          [khrazny@gmail.com](mailto:khrazny@gmail.com)  
subject:   re: Catching up      

 _Khrazny!_

 _So long ago that I hear from you! Will you come eat? Where can I come get you? Must be after evening service, so maybe 10 in evening, is agreeable to you?_

 _Look forward to it._

 _Az_

Raven smiles at that. She'd intended to introduce the topic of Kurt first, but meeting up with him - especially if it means getting to see his restaurant - sounds good. If that's selfish, well.

He still uses the nickname he gave her. Khrazny - red, for her hair. She'd called him Blue, for his eyes. Their own little joke.

Let's see... 10pm for him - he never did get the hang of the concept of timezones – is two in the afternoon in New York.

 

From:      [khrazny@gmail.com](mailto:khrazny@gmail.com)  
To:          [blue@diningwiththedevil.ru](mailto:blue@diningwiththedevil.ru)  
subject:   re:re: Catching up

 _I would love to come dine with the devil! Do you remember the pavilion in my brother's gardens? I will wait for you there tomorrow (friday) at 10pm in your time._

 

 

"You okay?" Logan asks under his breath as he brushes past her at the checkout. She makes a non-committal sound while she raises an eyebrow at the older man who is giving her the evil eye from the adjoining checkout. The cashier stares too, but her body language says that she's more fascinated than anything.

Kitty puts the last of the items on the belt and Raven shakes herself, abruptly turning her back on the man. It's still unnerving to be _noticed_ so much - her disguises are usually picked because they blend in, and to get so much attention is hard to get used to.

 

The reception at the Recycle Centre is.. mixed. She has talked to the volunteers several times, and the elderly Korean lady who mans the till recognises her as they come in - she does not yet look so different that she can't be recognised for the same person as before - and apart from assuming that she is sad the cure is not permanent, is pleasant enough. A snobby looking couple obviously hoping to find some antique furniture glares at the three of them and hurries out. A father calls together his three children and tells them to stay close. Raven smiles at the youngest girl, who is looking at her with huge, curious eyes.

 

They're all three rifling through the clothes racks, alternately guffawing at outdated fashion and contemplating serviceable clothes, and Raven is glad they both went with her. Without the company she would have been far tenser. The thought occurs that if people are going to get used to seeing mutants, they do need to be able to see them, meet them, have positive interaction with them.

She mentally sneers at that very Charles Xavier concept, but that doesn't make it any less true.

"Here, brings out your colour," Logan tosses a blue blouse at her head. Raven ducks reflexively and laughs at the harsh blue nineties style of the blouse. Kitty draws her attention by holding up a sweater vest, low enough that Logan can't see it from the other side of the racks.

Raven smirks and nods. Kitty passes it over so she can throw it at him.

"Goes with your art history lectures," she grins.

"What, they bring Chuck's old stuff here?" he unfolds it to hold it in front of his torso.

"Always hated those things," she chuckles. "He started wearing them when he was twenty."

"Really?" Kitty makes big eyes.

"He was teaching undergrads for the first time, I think. Wanted something that made him look more respectable."

It's the first time they've laughed at Charles' memory instead of mourned. It feels good.

 

 

The computer shop employee is trying to tell her about the specs of the laptop she's considering while also, almost desperately so, trying to ignore the fact that she's blue. It's hard to keep a straight face, because his body language is saying, loudly as if she can hear his thoughts, that she is _hot_ and _blue_ and _weird_ and _hot_.

Logan knows, has smelled it. He is watching with a smirk from where Kitty is beating him at some sort of demo console game.

She buys the laptop, the phone and the dongle that together will restore her connection to the world. And she smiles at the young man, barely in his twenties, who is only confused and fascinated at the sight of her. Not hateful. Not self-loathing at his reaction to her.

 

They're just about to head into the coffee bar when Logan's phone rings.

"Hi 'Ro... Yeah... Twenty minutes out... She's right here. Hang on, I'll ask."

He looks at her.

"Would you mind babysitting tonight? We've got something urgent coming up, and Hank's gotta be in Washington for a few days."

Raven flusters. Hanging out with the older teens she can do. But there are children as young as seven, and she has no more than a vague concept of what caring for them might entail.

"We'll help you with the little ones," Kitty says. "We usually do their bedtime routines anyway.'

Ah, she bets that the older students - and they are X-men these days, are they not? - she bets that they are perfectly capable of handling things, but they must prefer an older adult at the house. With any luck it will be more for form's sake than actual active supervision. She gives the young woman a look of profound gratefulness, and nods at Logan.

"Yeah, she's okay with it... Right... see ya in a bit then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Feedback is wuv


	4. Chapter 4

That evening she's sitting on the huge, horse-shoe shaped couch in the den, surrounded by teenagers. Dinner was a tumultuous affair that she mostly observed with amusement - the older students taking their task of semi-supervision quite seriously. After that they'd all settled in for a few episodes of Stargate.

They'd dropped her midway into season 3, but it had been oddly compelling viewing. Perhaps because Daniel Jackson was Charles when he was 25. And Jack was Erik, definitely. Did the kids see that? No, they couldn't possibly know what the two men had been like thirty-odd years ago.

The youngest children had been sent off to bed, had their pillows cooled by Bobby Drake, their teddies fetched by Kitty, their stories told by Marie and Piotr. Now the rest of the students are playing youtube videos on the new laptop, which has been hooked up to the projector.

For some reason Jubilee is trying to convince her to join facebook. Raven struggles to think of a way to explain why she won't make herself that findable without reminding them all that she used to blow up buildings. It still startles her that they seem so blasé about accepting (ignoring?) what she used to be.

Now that she thinks of it, some of the seven identities that she hasn't dumped do have facebook profiles. She makes a mental note to give them some attention soon.

To distract Jubilee - and possibly also to remind the girl that while she likes her, she is not sixteen but sixty-four - Raven plays the video of Santana's Soul Sacrifice performance at Woodstock, and mentions she was older than Jubilee is now when that happened.

It doesn't quite have the effect she expected. John Proudstar is apparently going through a sixties music phase, and he immediately wants to hear all about Woodstock, the bands, the performances.

She lines up some more music while she tells him about it, trying to keep it light, but the memories are powerful. She, Angel and Azazel in a huge muddy field, black and winged, blue and red, and they'd gotten _looks_ , certainly, but nobody had been _afraid_. There'd been more mutants, here and there. Angel had flown over the crowds, to cries of amazement and scattered cheers. For the space of a few days she had almost been able to see Charles' point of view, seen his hope. Then Emma had called them back because a mutant had been murdered in broad daylight in Georgia, and reality had snapped back into place.

Then Piotr mentions Joan Baez, and she's not at all surprised that Charles was a fan, played her music for the kids. It's just his type of sweet-voiced idealism. Before she knows it she's telling them a story from when they were kids, and then a golden-skinned girl called Heather is telling her about how she had first met the professor and how he had talked about his sister, and that they shouldn't have to hide.

Raven swallows thickly, and shoots Marie a grateful look when the girl immediately launches into a new story, of a game of hide and seek the professor had participated in just after she had come to the mansion. It takes the attention away from Raven, and she even laughs a little at the climax of discovering that Charles didn't need to hide, that he could simply make you not see him.

Looking around at the students she feels an odd tug, and the thought occurs that their adoption of her isn't about her at all, but about finding a piece of the professor and nurturing it. They'd lost the centre of their universe, and when they'd found out she was his sister, perhaps they'd subconsciously decided she could not be lost too. She can't replace him, but perhaps it makes them feel less powerless that they can rescue her, where they could do nothing to save Charles.

Mystique would have been insulted. Furious.

But she is Raven now, and she knows she enjoys this time with them in part because she finds a piece of Charles with them in return. She hears him in their words, sees him in their faces. Sometimes she fancies she hears their thoughts, as if he conveys them to her, though more likely it's simply her instinctive grasp of body language.

She'll be damned before she'll enforce something so domestic as bedtime, so most of the students take themselves off to bed, but about ten of them just kind of doze off on the couch. Kitty has dozed off against Piotr's side, snuggled under a blanket which also covers John Proudstar's legs as he's curled into the corner. Rahne, Heather and Jimmy curl up together like puppies while Raven softly talks with Warren and Marie about the future of mutantkind now that the cure is no longer in human hands. Is it public knowledge that the effect is temporary? Hank has been comparing blood samples of Raven to Marie's and thinks Raven's unusually fast cell regeneration may have sped up the process, and that means that she is the first to regain herself. What will happen when the world finds out? They softly talk deep into the night, until Marie trails to a halt in the middle of a sentence, and Warren falls asleep where he's settled down, his knees pulled up, facing the back of the couch so his enormous wings rest over the edge, moving gently on his calm breath.

Kurt is perched on the back of the couch, watching over him like a devil watching over a sleeping angel. Raven would feel pride if she thought she'd the right to feel pride in somebody whose personality she's had no part in shaping.

 

Raven works on the online presence of some of her identities, and watches over them, the music long since turned off.

 

It's well past two when she hears the engine under the baseball field hum to life, the sign that the Blackbird will be returning very soon. She calls Logan with the communicator they've given her for the night.

"Hey. You okay?"

She wonders if he still expects her not to be, or if that's simply his standard question when he answers the phone. She hasn't called him often enough to find out.  

"Yeah, fine." she says, trying not to wake anybody. "Do you need anything prepped for when you get here?"

They hadn't really told her what the mission was about, though she'd gotten the impression they were about to acquire another student.

"Yeah, get some chocolate warmed up," she can hear his smile. "And send one of the kids - I _know_ they're still up - to the storage locker where we keep clothes - we need some for a small kid, about three years old."

"They're all asleep, actual--" She looks up to see that John with his sharp senses has overheard. He carefully rearranges the blanket over Kitty before he saunters off with an 'I'm on it' hand gesture.

"--nevermind."

Raven heads to the kitchen as she hears the jet land. A small child? She knows they won't turn anybody away, but a child that young brings its challenges. She wonders how this will turn out.

But when Logan and Ororo come up out of the basement some ten minutes later it's not just a small child that's with them, but its mother too. The woman looks around the wood-panelled hallway with something of disbelief. The child she holds is - it takes a moment to realise in the low light, but the child has dark, green-iridescent scales and huge, yellow-green eyes. Rather beautiful in an alien sort of way, Raven thinks.

She's standing in the kitchen doorway, suddenly feeling like she shouldn't be there, acting like she belongs with the school. Like she's the welcoming committee instead of a former terrorist who is allowed to live on the grounds because of a family tie. But before she can make off Ororo leads them in her direction, introduces her easily as 'Raven, who looked after the students tonight'. The new woman takes her in with large eyes, and Raven realises she's probably the first visibly mutated adult the woman has seen. She steps into the light so she can have a better look.

"I'm Tania," the woman shifts the child so they can shake hands. Raven examines her face, an automatic cataloguing of her features and the precise tone of her skin just as much as it is appreciation. She's very beautiful, with high cheekbones and deep brown skin that seems almost blue-black in the low light of the kitchen. It causes a brief flash of.. something.. in her gut, and for the space of half a second she's not sure she wants to be _like_ this woman, or be _with_ her. Raven blinks. Being attracted to women isn't new, but it's been a while.

Logan, she can tell from the minute shift in his stance, has noticed this direction of her thoughts. Smells it, most likely. Bastard. It's almost as bad as living with a telepath.  

"Nice to meet you... I'm Raven. Welcome," she smoothes over the moment.

The little girl burbles while reaching out to Raven, and her mother smiles.

 "See Ayesha," she says softly to the child, "People really do come in all sorts of colours."

The little girl has cried recently, her scaly cheeks are still tearstained, but she reaches out to Raven's forehead, where scales have just begun to come through the skin, and giggles.

They sit at the large kitchen table and drink hot chocolate, Ororo telling Tania about the school. John comes in with some too-large clothes, the best he could find, and grins when Logan asks if everybody else is in bed.

"Go look in the den," he chuckles. Logan comes back a few minutes later and taps Ororo on the shoulder.

"You need to go have a look," he's grinning too now.

She returns wide-eyed.

"How did you manage that?"

"Talked politics," Raven gives her a cautious smile. She's not convinced they'll approve.

"Really? Would you consider giving a nightly lecture?" Ororo grins, relaxed and seeming pleased with the way the evening has turned out. She's usually so composed and distant that it's easy to forget she's only in her late twenties.

A few minutes later Ororo goes upstairs with Tania and Ayesha to show them their room, promising to introduce them around in the morning. Raven heads for the door, remembering that tomorrow holds her visit with Azazel. They've been friendly again for years, but she plans to tell him about Kurt, and she doesn't know how that will turn out. Best to try for a couple of hours of sleep.

Logan catches her just outside the door.

"Hey, thanks for steppin' in tonight," he says, low and warm.

"It was no pr-it was my pleasure," she says, because it's true.

He notices the catch and there's something like a smile in his eyes.  
"You going with the crazy teleporter tomorrow?"

She chuckles at that description of Azazel. Logan doesn't really know anything about him, but it's not so much _off_ as that nobody has ever dared calling him that.

"Yeah, get to check out his restaurant."

"Hmm."

It's clear he doesn't really like the idea of it, but won't try to stop her.

"You still got the comm unit?"

"Oh, yeah-" she fishes it out of the pocket of her hoodie sweatshirt and offers it to him.

"Keep it," he says gruffly. "He strand you anywhere, call us, we'll come get you."

She's known for a while he is protective of her, but this is... a good feeling, that he'd be willing to go out of his way to help her. Not that she isn't at least somewhat prepared for eventualities. She doesn't go with Az without a passport, a bottle of water, some energy bars and a satellite phone. Back when they had first started going out it had only taken one argument in a remote place for her to realise just how vulnerable she was, and she'd taken to carrying a small emergency package with her.

He'd been hurt at first, but with a little backup from Angel and Emma she'd made him understand, and later he'd always made sure she brought that little bag. Not because he expected to abandon her anywhere, but because he wanted her to feel secure in his presence. And he had taken to always, always bringing her home when it looked like they were going to have an argument, so she was on home ground if he did ended up leaving.

"Thank you - goodnight," she crunches across the gravel driveway and then slips into the pitch dark trail that leads around the lake and to the dome.


	5. Chapter 5

She's ready in the pavilion about half an hour before she's supposed to meet Azazel. It's cold, there's still some snow on the ground, but she wants to make sure she's the first person he sees. He's liable to come looking for her in the house if she isn't where she's said she would be, and that would be.. sub optimal.

For one thing, they now have a human woman living there who is only just coming to terms with the concept of all their different mutations. 'Ro will be introducing her around over the next few days, but meeting Az, if ever, should probably not be today.

She's deeply engrossed in The Tao Of Pooh - she's never claimed to be an intellectual - when there is the scent of sulphur and the snap of space suddenly occupied by a person.

 

He is obviously still in chef's clothes, though they are black instead of white. He is wiping his hands on a teatowel as he appears. He still looks exactly the same as he used to, almost startlingly so, apart from a general easing of the tension in his face. He looks content.

He turns to her and breaks into a wide grin.

"Khrazny!" he calls out, arms flung wide in a dramatic pose. "Blue thou art, intensely blue; Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?"

She laughs as he declaims those familiar lines in his Russian accent- how can she not? He found them for her once when she'd grumbled about blue having a bad rep, after she'd been subjected to too many 'feeling blue' gags.

She puts her book into her shoulderbag and jumps to her feet to hug him. He gives her face a brief, intense look, but seems to decide his questions can wait as he folds her into his arms. She's not at all surprised when his hand cups around her bare head and he teleports them away without a word.

There's the strange, breathless half-second of not-being that she knows seems much longer to him as he moves them into the strange dimension he has never found words for, then back out of it again. Then she's in the back of a restaurant kitchen.

A middle aged woman is assembling dessert plates at high speed - she has four arms, which makes Raven smile. Talk about being suited to a task. On one side of the kitchen is a dishwashing corner, where a blur only occasionally slows into the shape of a young man as dishes are being cleaned as supersonic speed.

"Welcome!" Azazel grins. "My domain. Is Kali," he indicates the woman, who gives a brief, distracted wave with one of her hands, "and Pietro."

An indistinct 'privyet' can be heard from among the clanking of pots.

"You want to eat in here, or," he gestures to the double doors that must lead into the restaurant. there's a murmur of many low voices, and she looks through the round windows to see a large, richly-appointed space that is still three-quarters full despite the late hour here. Most people are drinking wine - or stronger - and talking, content in their after-dinner haze.

"In here is good," she smiles. There's a table in a nook in the kitchen where she guesses the staff eats normally. From the look of it he'll do the cooking himself, and this way they can talk. Besides, there's something enjoyable about watching him cook. He still has the unselfconscious, balanced grace, but now it's in the way he reaches for knives, grabs  vegetables. He briefly disappears only to reappear a second later with a cut of meat in his hand. His tail reaches for the salt. She thinks he might be humming, completely in his own world.

Then he puts the meat in the oven and the next moment he materialises at the table with a large plate full of small morsels. He grabs plates and cutlery from a nearby cupboard, much more basic than what's used for the guests, and she likes that. He isn't trying to impress her. Or maybe he is a little - there are some very delicious things on that starter plate - but not in the way he'd try to impress guests.

He pours them wine in simple glasses, and they clink glasses together with a smile.

"Your health!" he toasts, and takes a sip. "You will forgive me for serving simple food. The devil gets tired of ' Seared and Poached Foie Gras'," he mimics a reedy, pretentious voice, "and Beluga caviar with.. _things"_ he sounds so derisive that she laughs. The smoked salmon is delicious.

"Is true! Best caviar in the world and they want.. _sauce_ , and _pastry_ and.. to tell their friends they ate the devil's caviar, but without tasting it," he trails off to a grumble. " _This_ is how caviar should be served," he continues, pointing at the little bowl on the plate between them. "With spoon."

"So why don't you serve it like this?"

"Ah, _business managers_ ," again that derisive tone, and he gives her a wry grin. "She tells me it must be _haute cuisine_ to make spoilt rich people happy. Not just taste good, but sound good, yes? And she is telepath, she should know." He shrugs.

"You're working with Emma?" it's an assumption, but his body language says she was right. Somehow that should surprise her, but it doesn't. Azazel had always gotten on reasonably well with Emma Frost, and now she thinks of it, the style of this restaurant has her signature all over it. Any gathering place of multi-millionaires, especially if not all of them stick to the law, is Emma's natural environment.

"Is handy, yes? No need for 'marketing research'," he grins.

She tries a little roll of carpaccio and something she can't quite identify, and her eyes drift shut. It would be delicious no matter what, but she's been eating extremely basic for the past years, with more consideration for nutrition than for taste. They're silent for a few minutes while she tastes the various things he has prepared for them, all simple but with extremely good ingredients.

"Is good?"

She's pretty sure she just made an indecent noise.  
"You really need to ask?"

He grins toothily, caught out, and spoons caviar into his mouth.

"Now, tell me what happened," he says finally, gesturing at her face. The scales have almost completely come through her skin now, and they show stark, bright blue against the skin that is still much paler.

She tells him about the past two years, from the time she was first captured, glossing over the part where Erik abandoned her. The Azazel of old would pop off to find Erik and.. _discuss_ the matter, and she has more important things to talk about today.

"So I'm living at the mansion now," she concludes. "Or rather, I have my own place on the grounds."

"I heard about your brother," he says. "I am sorry. He was a good man."

At that moment the oven alarm beeps, and he curses and teleports over to check on it. She is glad, actually - it gives her the time for some deep breaths. It feels like the gaping hole Charles left at the mansion has become so normal to her that it's almost a shock all over again when somebody names it.

There's steamed vegetables and roast pork tenderloin with blueberry sauce. She eats slowly, enjoying every bite, while he tells her about the little mutant community that has began to build around the restaurant. Due to his mutation he had never had the opportunity to socialise much, when she knew him - she doesn't know him as particularly sociable. It's clear though that he enjoys the expanded circle.

"I think it's great," she says. "Maybe it'll set a trend?"

"You want us to be... fashionable?" his look of distaste makes her grin.

"Not like you mean. But trends do sometimes purport mainstream acceptance, especially among young people. I was talking about it with the kids the other day – that gay rights are more taken for granted in their age group. Not everywhere, of course, but young people tend to be more liberal - every new generation seems to pick up and build toward normalcy... it sort of grows there. The problem is that all the old people with their stuck opinions are still there."

"You sound like your brother now."

"Well, I don't think he was all wrong," she says. "I don't think we were all wrong either."

His eyebrows jump. "They let you teach kids?"

"Not officially. I don't really want to, either. But I have a lot of challenging discussions," she grins. Then, because there doesn't seem to be a better moment: "Our son is there too. Kurt lives at the school."

If she didn't know him as well as she does, she would have missed the consternation in his eyes, the sudden restlessness of his tail. He cuts off another piece of his meat and regards her as he chews slowly.

"How is he?" he finally says. His voice sounds a little faint.

"Well. He has friends. He works with the younger kids on how to control their mutations." He might even have a girlfriend. She's seen the looks he exchanges with Ororo, though she doesn't know if they've really acted on it yet.

"He is... happy?"

She thinks about the way he laughs when he plays power-tag with the kids.

"Yes. And he would like to meet you."

The silence stretches as they eat. She can't quite tell how he feels about this – suspects he doesn't know himself. Then she sees his gaze unfocus for a long moment, in the familiar look of somebody hearing a voice inside their head.

"Emma?" she guesses.

"She wanted to know if there is problem," he smiles weakly. Then, finally: "Kurt, he knows what I... am?"

"If you mean what we both used to do, then yes. He is not... he accepts it, I think."

"Then I would like meeting. Will you bring him here to eat?"

She smiles at that, wondering if he likes the idea of showing off his cooking to emphasise he is no longer a killer, or if it's simply that he prefers being on familiar ground.

"He can't teleport like you," she says, considering. "He can only go where he can see, or where he has been before."

"Ah, he has not learned to use the inbetween space - this I can teach! I will come to you then, if this will not cause panic." He seems pleased at the idea that he can teach Kurt something about his powers, and she thinks that might work out, help lessen the tension.

"It would be best to go to my place, not inside the house. Neutral ground. Shall I talk to him and let you know when is a good time?"

"Yes. Good."

 

This difficult subject out of the way they move onto other things – the political situation regarding mutant rights, the cure and it's availability, and what is going on in their respective information networks. She doesn't hide that she might not be completely out of the game – her tactics have irrevocably changed, but she will not hesitate to do what is within her power to help their people. She's not at all surprised when he offers his support.

"I know our tactics were not the same," he says. "But if you need me, I will come. You recall how, yes?"

She closes her eyes and searches in her mind for the memory of how to reach out to him, a very specific, weak type of telepathy that allows him to hear people via that strange dimension his teleportation uses, and port himself straight to their position. From her point of view it's sort of like finding the sensation of that not-being place, and then forming a picture in her mind of his face. With practise she has also been able to give him very limited information about her position – what the space looks like, or if there's danger.

"Yes," he says, and her eyes snap open. "You remember. That is good."

"Thank you, for offering. I hope it will not be needed, but..."

"Backup is good," he grins toothily.

"Raven!" Emma sweeps into the kitchen, resplendent in white fur and satin. Raven has little doubt that she has been following along their conversation at least somewhat. That it doesn't seem to bother Azazel makes her wonder if they are together now. Given how successful he is, even prestigious, it wouldn't surprise her.

In a world that expected nothing from them except to look decorative on a man's arm, Both Raven and Emma had been drawn to men – and women – of a strength to match their own. Just usually to different types of strength. She gets up to greet the other woman, and Emma gives her a critical once-over. "You look like a very butch blue dyke," she decides after a moment, nodding at her millimetred hair.

 _And you should know_ , Raven thinks, remembering the brief time they'd been lovers. A diamond-edge smirk presses against her mind.

"Emma! You look like a former trophy wife!" she retorts sweetly. Unlike herself, Emma looks older. Not as much as her actual age, but certainly aging.

They exchange an air kiss while Azazel looks on with a grin. Once the animosity had been real, but it's a long time ago, and the catty reminders carry more affection now than anything.

Emma joins them at the table, and Azazel opens a bottle of dessert wine while Kali brings them a selection of small sweets.

"So, you're finally going to meet Kurt?" she says. Emma has never pretended not to listen to anybody's thoughts. When Raven was a child Charles had taught her to shield well, but the only thing that did was enable her to keep her surface thoughts to herself from a telepath who wasn't focused on them. If Emma wants to know something, she has no compunction about privacy. To her credit, she is generally discrete about it.

"Da," Azazel's body language leaves no doubt about his relationship with Emma. He's a little anxious at the thought of meeting Kurt, and subconsciously reaching for her.

"I heard about the attack on the president, a couple of years ago," Emma says to Raven. That was a bad business with Stryker."

"To put it mildly," Raven says with a thin smile. She doesn't like to think back to what Erik very nearly accomplished there, what she very nearly helped him accomplish there. "Are you well-informed these days?"

"Oh, I keep up," she smiles. "I just don't like to get my hands dirty."

  
Raven takes that for a tacit admission that she is open to the right job. It's good to have at least the option of calling in a telepath.

Wait, why is she even thinking about all this when she has no plans to leave Westchester?

"Sugar, you couldn't stay out of the game if your life depended on it," Emma says. "Even Erik had enough sense to get out of your way when you got that planning look in your eyes."

This is true. She had always been given a lot of freedom to run infiltration missions the way she deemed best. Except of course, right now she couldn't infiltrate a Halloween shop.

 

They share another bottle of wine, chatting until all the customers have long gone and it is well past two in the morning, and then Azazel ports her home, to the snowy lawn of the mansion, where it is late in the afternoon.

"I will talk to Kurt and mail you about when, okay?" she promises. He grins his rakish grin and tugs her close with his tail, so he can kiss her lips. It's brief and chaste and fond. Then he is gone.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, that's been a while. I finally finished the epic SGA/GK story and though I'm kind of going toward Avengers now, that's not so incompatible with Xmen that this didn't tickle me a little. This chapter was largely already written, and I can't promise anything, but there _might_ be more coming.

That same evening she downloads her media crawler programs and starts looking online for the information hubs on mutant activism. Emma passed along some new sources, and she spends most of the night catching up. The cure and its subsequent loss have changed quite a few things, but there are still plenty of rumours about research facilities, prison wings, and even a special orphanage where mutant children are more or less warehoused, if the source is to be believed.

She marks that last one as something to bring up with Ororo – Charles was known in certain circles to take on cases, and the other woman might have legit channels to get to those children.

***

"So, you back together with him?"

"Good morning Logan," she says absently as he comes in. Then, ears catching up: "Wait, what?"

"Are you back together with your ex," he repeats. Sounding more casual than his body language betrays. Did he see Az kissing her?

"No... though if he cooked for me every day, I'd consider it," she muses idly. His expression shutters - apparently that was the wrong thing to say.

"I don't get you," he mutters. She can almost hear him think: _All of a sudden you're eying up Tania and coming back drunk and giggling from seeing your ex._

She'd thought that whatever is between them could wait until she felt ready for it, had in fact felt surprised that he could be so patient. Perhaps she shouldn't have waited so long.

"Logan - it's only.." she gestures frustratedly. She really shouldn't have to explain this. "Until maybe last month I spent half my time thinking about how to kill myself. It's really very recent to feel this part of myself at all."

"I know."

He's very, very close all of a sudden.

"I wanted to give you space," he tugs her against his chest, like he's done many times before, but this time it's not about comfort. She pushes her face into the crook of his neck, not feeling that there need to be any words at all.

"Now I wonder--"  she sinks her teeth into his trapezium muscle, and he jolts.

"Logan, stop talking," she says, running her tongue over the crescent of red teeth marks. He cradles her skull in his hands, drawing her back so he can look at her.

"Just like that?" had he expected some grand discussion? Raven has never been much for talking about her feelings, certainly not when things seem so _obvious_. He wants her, his entire body is primed to her - and she wants him.

She gives him a wicked grin. "We could sit down and talk abou--"

"Fuck that," he interrupts, pulling her close so that he can kiss her.

Music doesn't swell, angels don't sing. She doesn't suddenly become a different, more desirable person, the way she thought she would when she was a desperately insecure teen. But it's nice. He isn't rough, but he isn't gentle either, and she hasn't been kissed with this much intent in a very long time.

She feels solidly inside herself in a way that she doesn't quite have words for, and yet _light_ , like bouncing up out of a backflip, like gravity can't quite keep hold of her. Her hands slide around his ribs, exploring the solid expanse of his back, and Logan makes a noise deep in his throat. Then he suddenly seems to rally himself, and puts her at arm's length.

"This isn't happening because you saw him today," he says. It isn't as much a statement as he seems to have intended.

"No," she agrees. "Though maybe it's happening _now_ because I saw Az today?"

He makes an inarticulate, growly 'maybe' sort of sound and then drags her in for another kiss, seeming to find that enough discussion. She doesn't disagree.

*** 

The next afternoon Azazel comes as agreed. Raven and Kurt meet him at the pavilion, and she can see Hank and Logan on the doorstep of the mansion. Their gazes cross, and she sees tension in their stances -  Hank is a bristly, tense shape and she can almost imagine his growl. Logan looks tense too, but differently, and as the three of them turn into the wooded lane toward her dome house she wonders if he is thinking about Azazel and her. He doesn't have reason, but he doesn't know that yet, she supposes.

Her son and his father are both nervous, but also clearly eager to like the other and to be liked in return. They make an interesting picture together, alike and yet so very, very different. Raven has shoved her own nerves to the side, both because her ability to read body language tells her they both want this to work, and because she tries to be the facilitator and not burden either of them with the weight of her own anxieties.

She makes coffee and gently steers the conversation away from politics and religion, and then Kurt tells about his time as an acrobat and from there they move on to teleporting, and she relaxes, because Azazel is clearly pleased he has something to offer.

"What do you see, when you jump?" Az has always called it jumping, just like she thinks of her own ability as shifting.

Kurt looks puzzled.  
"I have to see where I am going, so I do not end up inside a wall."

"But in between here and there, there is a place...?" no recognition in Kurt's eyes, so Az continues "When I jump, there is a... an inbetween place. And from there I can see... no, _sense_ , many things. If I have idea of where I want to go, I can sense what it is like, where are walls, if there are people. And I can look for people I know. Some people can call me to them."

"What?" Kurt looks overwhelmed at the idea, at how vastly more powerful than himself Azazel is. "How?"

"I have a way of.. looking for Az in my thoughts," Raven explains. "In a way that he can recognise. Then he can jump to where I am."

"Like an anchor," Az nods. "And a telepath can give me mental imprint. If Emma reads a location from somebody, she can give it to me, and I can go there."

"That is - unglaublich! But I do not know this inbetween place."

Az drains his coffee cup, shoots her an apologetic glance, and offers his hand to his son. Raven smiles, having expected this, and watches as Kurt hesitates minutely. He, too, glances at her, and she nods encouragingly. Then he takes his father's hand, strange, ink blue fingers curling around scarred red ones, and they disappear together.

Raven smiles wryly, pleased that they are connecting and a little sad that she is left out, and then gets up to throw another log on the fire. She settles on the couch with her laptop. No telling how long they will be gone, but it could be a while, and she has research to do.

She hasn't gotten all that deep into her reading material when Az reappears in the kitchen. He saunters over to her, looking pleased.

"How is it going?"

"He is.. practising." He gives her a speculative look that makes her grin. "Will you come play hide and seek with us?"

She closes down her laptop, puts on her coat and grabs the shoulderbag with book, communicator, power bars and water bottle. Then she takes his offered hand, and a moment later she is on the roof of the mansion, not far from what used to be her hiding space.

"Can you try to call him?"

She closes her eyes, trying to concentrate on her son, on seeing him in front of her, gentle yellow eyes and those trace lines on his face, beautiful and horrible. _Kurt_ , she thinks, projecting the thought like she used to do when talking to her brother. Outlining the shapes, solidifying the thoughts until they are almost objects she can toss at him. _Over here_.

She tries to project an image of where she is, and then she opens her eyes. Az is watching her, eyebrows jumping as if they are sharing some sort of great joke. It makes her grin - she'd forgotten how much he enjoys using his abilities to play games.

A moment later Kurt appears on the gravel of the driveway. He looks around sharply, and then jumps to beside them.

"Ah, you cheat!" Az chides, blue eyes gleaming, and grabs her wrist.

Raven finds herself in a dark room. For a moment she feels apprehension, because it could literally be _anywhere_ , but then she takes a deep breath and recognises the scent of the house. Old wood, oil and tar - she's in the boathouse.  Nobody has lived here in a long time, though it's sometimes used as a guesthouse, and the adjacent workshop is in regular use. She has made a lot of her furniture here.

Azazel immediately drifts around the room, examining the things on the shelves and the contents of cupboards. He never did quite grasp the concept of privacy, she remembers.

She sits down on the overstuffed couch and concentrates on calling Kurt.

Like before she shapes her thoughts as well as she can, but she also thinks _boathouse_ and forms a mental picture of where on the grounds it is, and what it looks like. This sort of focus is tiring, but she does her best to maintain the images

With a swirl of ink blue her son stands in the middle of the room.

"Da! That is good," Az exclaims, and Kurt lights up with pleasure at the approval. Azazel steps closer to his son, face growing very serious.

 ***

"Do not tell anybody you can do this thing, yes?"

Kurt's eyes go wide.

"Why not?"

"Is important for safety," he says gravely, "-and sanity."

Raven hides her grin behind her hand. Kurt doesn't know Azazel well enough yet to recognise the glint in the man's eyes.

"Before you know, you are mutant taxi service, yes? 'Kurt, pick me up from shopping', 'Kurt, we do not want to fly to vacation, bring us', Kurt, I am late for work, you must bring me'," he mimes, his eyes full of devilish glee.

Raven tries to suppress her laugh at Kurt's expression, and fails.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the glacial pace of updating. This story is still kicking!

Life goes on, as it does.

Reconnected to some of her former sources, she digs herself deep into the current situation on mutant rights. The New Zealand parent of a mutant child writes a highly successful - if anonymised - blog.

Denmark and The Netherlands have instituted various forms of anti-discrimination and hate-crime legislation as it applies to mutants. The murderer of a homeless mutant in Atlanta is sentenced to jail time, to great political uproar.

She's mostly soaking in the information, trying to find a place for herself to further the cause. Trying to find how she can use her skillset in a way she is comfortable with. Missions as she used to run them are no longer an option, but if she is reverting to her true self...

She doesn't have anything to lose, as long as she makes sure the school stays out of danger. If giving the movement a visible face will help, she might be willing to risk it.

 

Some of the students are in the gymnasium messing around, and she lounges against the doorpost, observing them. John Proudstar is showing off his considerable acrobatic skills. His enhanced strength and speed allow him to do moves she hasn't seen in years.

Bobby Drake is filming him, but after a few minutes they trail to a halt as John notices her.

"Hello - do you want to use the room?"

"I was enjoying watching you," she shrugs. "Are you making a film?"

"It's my AV project," Bobby says.

"About Parkour?"

"This is more freerunning, but I-- you know about Parkour?" John interrupts himself, and she grins because the students don't often remember that she's in her sixties. Apparently it's easy to forget when she doesn't look like it.

"I used to have a - a friend," she remembers at the last moment that 'colleague' won't endear them to her, "Who was fond of it. He'd go out in the middle of the night to bounce all over town."

She'd never been particularly close with Toad, but she'd noticed how much the chance to take that small amount of freedom had improved his moods. They'd been an outlet, a release for the anger that had driven him. Though it still irks her to find only the _pretty_ mutants here in Westchester, the photogenic mutations if they are visible at all, she's still glad that these young men won't have to go through that.

They might still be angry at the world - and part of her thinks they _should_ be, but it hopefully won't be the all-compassing rage of somebody who had never known acceptance. The kind of rage that is all too easy to manipulate.

"Cool. You do any yourself?"

There's a challenging grin on his face that she finds herself answering, and she drops her towel on a bench to join him on the mats. 

 

 

Twenty minutes later they are trying to do a long sequence of flips and handsprings in synchronisation, and figuring out where they move differently.

"You turn a lot faster here. No matter how much height I get, I'm still always struggling to come round in time," John says.

She has him show her the move he means and gives him suggestions, and they practice until they get their moves perfectly locked in sync - which Bobby of course films.

Then they proceed to the more off the wall moves. Up the wall moves. On the wall moves. Because both of them can do some fairly gravity-defying things, and Raven has never been challenged by somebody who could do the same sort of moves. She shows off a little.

"Daaamn. We need to make you a 'gravity is my bitch' t-shirt."

"NOW we're getting to the properly superhuman stuff," Bobby cheers, pointing his camera. "Not that the flips weren't cool, but you can see that at the Olympics. _This_ is shit normal people can't do."

"Shame you can't post your video online," John says, running four, five metres up the wall before backflipping and landing in a deep, effortless crouch.

"Yeah."

"Why not?" Raven hears herself say.

They stare at her.

"Because it's not safe? Because Hank would never let us?"

"Didn't Charles always say that if people got no positive exposure to mutants, they would never get used to us?"

She doesn't quite know how to formulate it yet, but something about this idea is buzzing in her brain, pushy and insistent.

"Weren't we talking about how young people tend to push acceptance? If you made a video of two mutants doing some extremely cool freerunning, what sort of reaction would you get?"

"It's still dangerous to put ourselves on the internet though," Bobby said reluctantly.

"If you film it so that looks just like the inside of any other gym, and you don't do closeups of our faces, what could anybody do with the information that mutants like to mess around in a gym?"

They're still staring at her.

"It doesn't have to be recognisable," she shrugged. "I can put on a longsleeve shirt." She's in a black racerback top, the closest thing to freeing while still decent. 

"Or just make it black and white," John says slowly, considering, clearly warming up to this idea.

"Okay, let's just make the video first and then we'll see, right?" Bobby says. They spend some time getting specific shots, doing the more crazy moves over and over so he can get all the angles.

Finally she's sweaty and her muscles burn pleasantly, but before heading off to shower she primes them with the right tactics to talk to Hank.

  

"Hank says to tell you 'thanks for teaching the kids to do that," Logan says in a wry tone, grabbing a beer.

"Teach them to do what?"

"Coming out with the sort of arguments he can't reasonably disagree with." He grins widely.

"I didn't--"

He cocks his head and gives her a look, and she smiles a little. Of course she did. This is what she _does_ , and Logan at least can't be fooled about it.

 

Two weeks later the video goes online.

The next day it's on Reddit. And Upworthy. And then things become a little bit crazy.

 

Bobby and John turn up on her doorstep with a laptop and overwhelmed expressions, and show her the interview requests. And it isn't as if she hadn't considered this at all, but she hadn't really been angling for more than showing young people some things about mutants that weren't covered in the typical shock docs about The Mutant Problem.

"It's an opportunity," she says. "Even if you don't go in person, doing a phone interview or even a chat session..."

Because the comments on the video tell her there's a hunger. A hunger for more info about mutants, info that isn't about being either dangerous or a victim or both. A hunger to hear about their lives, hear their side of the stories.

"You can always say that you can't come to the interview in person because it's still dangerous to be publically identified as a mutant."

Which is true. And a rather pointed message to send to sympathetic media sources.

She helps the boys draft email replies, then sends them off to think about what sort of image they want to present to the media. What are they willing to talk about, and what is off-limits? Are they willing to get political in the initial interviews or do they want to keep it light? Controlling your own image is the key to successfully using this opportunity.

It's a good thing she has a lot of experience with that.


	8. Chapter 8

Bobby and John agree to do a few written interviews, and one of the questions is directed at her.

_What is it like to go out in public if you are visibly mutated?_

"I don't actually know," Raven says to Logan, feeling frustrated. "I've been out here in Westchester a few times, but that's hardly an average place. They're used to us here."

She has plenty of second hand experiences she could use for her answer, but she feel the interview merits recent, first hand experience.

"Wanna go on a field trip?" he shrugs after a long moment.

"New York?"

"Yeah. You and me." He gives her a challenging lift of his brows, and she grins, because this sounds like he's upping the ante on this slow, cautious thing they have going on. A thing where he comes over to her place to drink beer and pet her adopted-stray-cat, or help her maintain the place, or run together, or make out.

Maybe she's ready.

"Let's do it," she says with false levity. She looks almost completely like her old self again now, though she doesn't quite have the same depth of blue yet. Her eyes are now a startling green, on their way to their old yellow-gold.   

She has never been out in public looking like this. At least, not without Eric and Toad and Sabretooth behind her and the intent to destroy anybody looking at them askance.

 

 

It's both better and worse than she thought it would be. The stares are unnerving, and she keeps reaching out to shift herself into somebody less noticeable. It takes her breath every time, chokes her up with pain and loss.

It's far easier to let Logan guard her back than she is comfortable with. She's always looked out for herself, it makes her feel weak to be relieved to feel his hand in the small of her back as he glowers at a bunch of teens who are calling stupid shit at her.

They take the metro a lot, on the theory that it's a good place to find out how the general public responds to mutants among them. They try it with Logan sitting next to her, opposite her, and further down the carriage. With Raven watching the people around her, pretending to be asleep, and later on, reading or knitting.

There is a lot of staring and frequent, poorly concealed attempts at phone photos.

When it's clear that Logan is with her she gets less harassment, but also less friendly contact. The most positive response is when she's knitting - she guesses because most people never even consider that mutants have domestic lives just like everybody else. It's incongruous. and therefore, more interesting than threatening.

The seats next to her stay empty. There are a lot of double-takes followed by studious ignoring. One time an older man loudly proclaims that there should be a separate carriage for 'muties'. Three young black men pause their conversation about a club they were in the night before, to walk all the way across the carriage to sit down next to her. Raven is quietly, deeply grateful.

Just to say that she's tried, she engages a couple of the more openly hostile people in conversation. She quickly remembers why it's futile - when called on their prejudices, they just get more entrenched and hostile. Mostly it doesn't go further than some cursing followed by a muttering retreat.

There are three times that she feels threatened enough to signal Logan. He comes over to give his "I'm a mutant too, that bother you, Bub?" speech and each time the carriage clears instantly.

 

They go into a diner in Brooklyn, and a murmur goes up as they take seats at the bar and order coffee. Chairs are scraped back.

"Is there a sign on the door says 'no mutants'?" the owner asks sharply, giving her clientele a challenging look. "Is there?"

Raven leaves the largest tip she thinks won't be offensive.

 

It's far harder than she thought it would be to lay back on the hotel bed and let Logan trace the lines of her body with his fingers. She likes him - might even have some warm fuzzy feelings for him, she's not sure how she would know. She's tense though, strung out from a day in public, and her body clearly isn't in this game. She's reduced to mutely letting it happen. He notices, and backs off.

"Sorry," she mumbles into his shoulder.

"What?"

"For not... saying."

"Sorry for not noticing sooner," he sighs into her hair. "Is this okay?"

They're both fully dressed again, curled up together on top of the covers. It's maybe the first time that she's understood how clothes can feel like protection. They still irritate her scales though.

She's so damn exhausted that she doesn't even answer him, just presses close and kisses his throat and falls asleep.

 

She tries to write a balanced answer to the interview question - that the reactions are very mixed, but when they are unpleasant, they are very threatening. And 'only' three times in four and a half hours that she felt she was in acute physical danger.

It starts an interesting discussion in the media. Hank, as one of the few visibly mutated people in the public eye, is asked to comment. He gives a long interview, and Raven is impressed at his skill in balancing the topic. Of course mutants want to lead more normal lives and spend time among people - they often just don't feel like they can. And while he catches a lot of unpleasantness, he is imposing enough to mostly get the stares and the mutters.

For weeks she trawls the internet, scoping out public opinion, adding to the discussions. She also helps the kids to make a second video - though mostly she moderates their brainstorming sessions and leaves them to it.

It ends up featuring the school's punkrock band, ice sculptures and other art projects, messy teenager rooms, silly dances and Calc homework. It's cheerfully narrated by Jubilee and Rahne, and Raven enjoys how much it isn't about mutants at all. It's a video about ordinary things, things any teenager will be able to recognise, interspersed with the occasional glimpse of mutant abilities.

 

Hank and Ororo have a long, serious discussion with the kids who chose to appear recognisably in front of the camera. Logan and Raven sit down to go over the clip again, making a threat assessment. How much danger can these images bring to the kids, to the school? A few shots are cut, but the kids had already thought about this. Not much needs to be changed.

 

The video ends up on mainstream news. The mutant activists jump on the chance to be heard. Emma, recognising the hand behind it, sends her a congratulatory email.

 

And then suddenly, like finding a muscle she didn't know she had, she shifts. It's a small thing, a subconscious redistribution of bodyweight to rescue a difficult handspring-flip combination. When she lands she does some stretches to cover her momentarily confusion. It's back? She tries to shake it off. This is not the moment to try it.

But later, back in the privacy of the dome, she tries it and yes - it's _there_. Rusty and strange, she struggles for details and it takes all her concentration to keep them, but she can do it again.

She doesn't know why she does not tell anybody, but for weeks she is only blue when she sleeps and when others can see her. Any other moment she takes a shape and holds it while she reads a book, cooks a meal, or does pull-ups on the bar in the dome. The cat doesn't care, comes to her no matter what - her scent does not change.

She feels guilty when Logan leaves and she immediately shifts into Tania's shape. Shouldn't she be sharing this? Why isn't she? The longer she keeps it secret the harder it becomes to reveal. It's not that she doesn't want to look like herself, but that she is practising her ability so that it will be solid and reliable when she needs it.

She finds some different backgrounds and records a dozen video responses with a dozen different faces, inserting them into the discussion.

She may prefer being blue, but one thing she delights in is shaping clothes – it's now no longer necessary to wear cloth on her skin. She can create the appearance of clothes so that she's decent (the years that she would demonstratively have gone naked are long past) yet no longer has the discomfort of scratchy fabric that catches on her scales. It doesn't take long before she's practiced enough again that she doesn't have to fear slip-ups.

Of course, she's neglected one aspect, she realises the first time Logan comes over since she's started to wear her own skin. She's shaped familiar clothing - a baggy pair of army fatigues and a tank top - but as soon as he's close to her he freezes and takes a slow breath.

 _No detergent smell_.

She bites down on the reflex to get the hell out of there, as far away as she can. To leave everything behind and start over as she's done so many times before. This is Logan, and he is no longer the enemy. There is absolutely no point in keeping it a secret.

"Look!" she says with a false-bright smile. Acting skills that have carried her through a life full of extremely dangerous situations waver under his intent look. Then she changes the colour of the outfit with a thought and a rustle of scales.

He must be able to tell that her heart is going a mile a minute, because he reaches out to cup her face with both hands, as if to stop her retreat.

"How long?"

"I'm - it's - not--" she hates that she is breathless, with only the harshest of self discipline stopping her from trembling in his hands.

"How long have you been able to do it, Raven?" he repeats, low and controlled.

She looks into his eyes and isn't sure if she's more afraid of his disappointment or his anger. It flashes through her that her furniture will be broken if she has to fight herself away from him now - but then again it won't matter, she will need to leave everything anyway. If she even makes it out, because she's allowed him into a huge tactical advantage. He could break her neck in the fraction of a second, like this.

"Raven." he grinds. "How. Long."

"F-few weeks," she whispers.

"Okay," he breathes, maybe more to himself than to her. "Okay."

She shakes a little when he holds her face still and then leans in to press his lips against her forehead.

"Sorry," he murmurs. "Didn't mean to... I thought.. I thought all of this was fake."

He takes his hands from her face, and the fear drops another few notches as he hugs her instead.

"Why did you keep it secret?"

"It was - I just..." she trails to a halt. Rallies, tries again. "I needed to practice first. And then it just..."

She doesn't actually know.

"Is this like the kids who hoard food when they come to us, only with tactical advantages?" he asks with a wry smile.

She closes her eyes, because that's a little close to the mark. She hoarded food for years after she was adopted by Charles. Even years later she would still have stashes around the house, though it was usually only a few biscuits then, no longer half the contents of the fridge.

And maybe part of the reason of keeping her returning ability to herself had been strategic. The best defence is one nobody knows you possess. 

"Maybe?" she tries to laugh it off.

He gives her another kiss on the forehead, chuckling when she scrunches up her nose at the way his stubble catches on her scales.

"I'm glad for you."


	9. Chapter 9

Now she can shift again, it's almost impossible to sit still and watch events play out from the sidelines. The discussion rages on, good and bad, moderate and extreme voices.

A mutant sympathiser in Philadelphia is beaten up and ends up in a coma. The Huffington Post writes a long expose about the industry behind the mutant 'cure' and the ethics of people being forced into taking it. FOX News airs another shock doc about 'natural born killers'.

Anonymous, always eager to show up FOX and geeky enough to be more intrigued by mutants than scared, holds a small rally in support of mutant rights. It's attended mostly by students in Guy Fawkes masks - if there are mutants attending, it's hard to tell. She drops by their online hive and suggests that for the next rally they all wear stage make-up and costumes, making them all look like mutants.

That idea clear appeals to their sense of theatrics, and the next rally looks amazing. There are at least a hundred people, and almost all of them are either made up or in costume. It's impossible to tell how many of them are mutants. Raven attends too, in a full body lycra suit. She blends right in, because those are popular, and has a great time dancing and partying.

There are reporters trying to put their slant on the protest - some of them dismissive, and some on the other side about how it's insensitive and insulting to dress up as mutants. Anon doesn't have designated spokespeople, so Raven takes the opportunity to talk to the media.

"Is it insulting? Is it insensitive?" she says, still in the lyrca suit. "Protesting like this makes it safe for mutants to come out and protest with us. What's insulting is that we're in a society where this is even necessary."

"Are you a mutant yourself?" the reporter retorts.

"I don't see how that's relevant to what I've just said."

  

Before she even fully realises it, she's doing missions again. Short recon missions, designed to find out what, if anything, is true about the rumours that circulate in the underground source network. Her findings she neatly drops into the Anonymous network, where they are picked up by the research section, which carries forward her work and then disseminates it to sympathetic media sources. The chaotic nature of the movement conceals her actions better than any smokescreen she could have thrown up.

 

Then, of course, the missions grow in scope.

 

"Are you leaving?"

"For a while, yeah."

Logan grabs her by the shoulder and stares into her eyes, and she knows there's nothing on her face for him to read, but she still needs to suppress the urge to squirm or struggle.

"You know that you're no longer alone, right?"

She mutters a curse when she feels her pokerface fail. How does he know exactly what to say? He seems to draw the wrong conclusion, because his face hardens.

"Are you working for Magneto again?"

"What? No! Do you really think I'd do that after what he did to me?"

"You're working for somebody," he says, tilted head suspicion.

"Did it even occur to you I might be working on my own?" she's affronted now, giving away things she hadn't planned on sharing. "I usually ran my own missions even when I did work with the Brotherhood."

Erik had learned very quickly that her style of infiltration did  not lend itself well to micro-management, and had usually left her to run things as she deemed best while he did less subtle missions elsewhere. Tearing things apart had always more been Erik's style, and the violent mutants he preferred to recruit.

 Her mutation allows her to blend, to slip-slide her way into organisations, systems and lives. When she runs missions, they have always been covert, bloodless - apart from in Germany when she was desperate to wrap things up - and effective.

"So what are you going to do?"

She slips out of his grip and opens the netbook she's bought in anticipation of this mission.

"There's this private clinic that's been on the radar for years - plastic surgery." she pulls up the webpage. "There kept being rumours about shady medical practices and miraculous recoveries, but it was so vague it didn't seem much, and I always had higher priority intel missions going on. Lately, the rumours have intensified, and.. " she clicks to the vacancies page. "They just found their intern for the summer."

As she says it she morphs into the face she's chosen for this, a pleasant-faced half Chinese girl.

"So you get in, and then? Don't you need a backup team?"

She realises he really doesn't know very much about her former life. They've never talked about it, and the things the X-men have seen her do were the maybe 20 percent visible things she did. The other 80 percent was the type of work that if she did it well, nobody ever knew about.

"Then I do what I've been doing for the past thirty years. I work there for a while, collect as much intel as I can, do some excursions into the basements when I know enough to get away with it, and then I get out. Then if there's reason to, I can hand it off."

"Hand off?"

"To the media if I think that will accomplish something, or a strike-team if it won't." She shrugs. "That's usually where Erik came in, but there are others." Of course, she'd have been part of that strike team, but she figures he understood as much. "If you and Storm and Hank feel it's something the Xmen should do..."

"And if things go wrong, if you're found out?"

"Ideally I could play it out in character, get fired - if things really go south, Az is my extraction backup."

His expression says that as much as he'd like to, he can't really object to the idea of a teleporter as extractor.

"Why that guy, why not Kurt?"

"I think the world of Kurt, which is exactly why in a really dire situation, I would rather not drag him in," she smiles. "If things are so bad that I end up revealing myself, I'd rather call in a cold-blooded killer to have my back."

He nods, as she'd known he would. He doesn't like Az, but there's no question that he will fight for her safety as much as Logan would himself, and that counts for a lot with Logan.

It's harder to explain to the kids that she'll be gone for the summer, and she misses them far more than she thought she would.

 

They're the slowest three weeks of her life, but her patience is rewarded when one of the surgeons gets a little lax with what sort of meeting notes she should be transcribing. It wouldn't be glaringly obvious to most, but if you know the rumours then there's enough evidence that points toward dodgy things going on.

Unfortunately it takes another nine days before she can find a moment to take a look in the restricted spaces. She can't get into the main one, there's a fingerprint lock she wasn't prepared for, but what she can see in the hallway is damning enough. Signs of somebody living there long term - a freezer full of ready meals, a microwave. They are keeping people in there. She gathers all the information she can, and three days later Xiou Chun has a family emergency and regretfully ends her internship early.

In some ways, that was the easy part. Now she has the information, what to do? Passing information to the X-men will probably lead to Hank trying to do this politically, and whoever is being kept in that lab doesn't have that time. She has enough contacts who would raze the place to the ground, and she may not personally have any problems with that, but she knows how that would look. They don't need media coverage about mutants being destructive.

She decides to go to Russia to talk to Emma, and ends up lounging decadently on a sofa with a glass of champagne while Azazel cooks for her and Emma.

 

The next day the owner of the clinic has a meeting with a rich, beautiful potential client with eyes like cool diamonds. He watches her walk out at the end of the meeting with a smile on his face, unaware of the behavioural trigger she has left behind in his psyche.

That night, Azazel ports Raven into the restricted area of the clinic. There's a luxurious recovery room there, obviously intended for clients. On the other side of the very thin wall is a cell where a woman lives. There's a shower cubicle and a toilet, and a stationary bike in the corner. She's watching them quietly when they open the door from the recovery room to her space, a book open on her lap.

She's maybe fifty, with a mass of dark brown curls and a pleasant face. Oceanic descent, Raven thinks. She looks thin and wan, exhausted.

And the moment she and Az come within ten feet of the woman, Raven feels the bruise on her arm - she'd sparred with Az that morning - disappear.

"Hi. I'm Raven, this is Az. Do you want out of here?"

The woman, who is called Kauri, is an empath with healing powers. Near as Raven can tell that means she feels everything the people she is healing feel. Given that she is used for surgery recovery - and incredibly invasive and experimental surgery at that...  

Kauri flinches a little when Az ports into her cell, but gamely takes his hand. A few moments later they are in Westchester.

"Thank you, Az," Raven says.

"You are very welcome," he says with his thick accent. "I look forward to second act." He sketches a theatrical bow to them both, and disappears.

Raven decides that Kauri's mutation probably makes it advisable to bring her to the secluded dome rather than into the crowded mansion - at least while the woman is wobbling on her feet, shivering in her thin coverall. Luckily Az already anticipated that and brought them just outside her vegetable garden.

Kauri seems remarkably trusting, asking few questions and passively going along with whatever Raven suggests. Is it that she's too worn down and exhausted to be suspicious? Perhaps, if she's an empath, she can feel that Raven sincerely means to help her.

She isn't used to getting that much wordless trust. It's more than a little unsettling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I still had this written. Not quite sure where I was going anymore! I keep thinking I've abandoned this story and then 6 months later it starts to tickle me again, but I can't promise anything


End file.
